San Cristóbal

In a continued effort to eventually reach Guatemala and the rest of the world, we sojourned southeast from Puerto Escondido on Saturday. Bus left at 6:30pm so we puttered around town until then. Arrived in San Cristobal at about 8am the next morning! Bus ride was much more enjoyable than our previous excursion and I slept the majority of the way. Unlike the trial periods and as Jason mentioned in his blog, the malaria drugs are having a bit of an effect on my dreams. Its not necessarily nightmares, its just very difficult to tell when some dreams are actually dreams! For example, I was seated next to a mexican girl on the bus ride to San Cristobal, and a few hours in, she turns to me and offered me this great silver present. I kept telling her to take it away and she eventually did, but I couldnt help but thinking how odd the whole experience was. Finally, when I fully woke up, it hit me...twas a dream! Hopefully I'll start to get used to these things...either that or slide into full blown schitzophrenia (spelling?), but Im betting on the former! I dont even really have to be taking them yet, just knew that we were supposed to start 1-2 weeks before entering a malaria zone and we didnt know our guatemala timeline, o well!

San Cristobal is the main city and I believe the capital for the Chiapis province. Its quite unlike any other area of Mexico in that it's made up mainly of indigenous people and seems much more like Guatemala or 'Central American', rather than Mexican. Theres an ongoing rebel campaign to break it off into its own province and you can see around here that many of the locals support the EZLN, that being the guerilla group, not to worry though Mom, no violence against tourists! Except for that bombing yesterday....I joke, I joke, there hasnt been a major attack for ten years when the rebels took control of this very city :). Climate here is much more suitable to us Canadians and has prompted to me swing by the market today and pick up a toque!

We're going to stay here until the day of the dead celebrations are over (so leave on Nov 3rd). Although the city is gearing up for it and its a neat old city, we're a little worried that there may not be much to do, but I guess in the end we can just sit around the hostel. Our next stop from here is a 5 hour bus ride to Palenque to see the ruins (pretty sure ive already mentioned all this in several blog entries, but too bad!).

On the bus ride over we ran into our German friend Tim from Oaxaca. Spent the day with him yesterday going on a river boat tour. Took a little van into the jungle, hopped on the river boat and the guide took us up into this large canyon. We couldnt go the entire way because of hurricane debris, but what we did see was quite cool. Lots of birds, lizards, a few crocodiles and to top it off 3 lazy monkeys hanging around from some trees. We saw the spot that the chiapas flag is based off of (you can see the picture on jasons blog) and spent most of the trip just gazing up into the huge mountains on either side of us.

Tonight being halloween, there are already some little goblins running around looking for candy. Not sure what it was...but last night there were also little guys running around. Theyd stop you and start randomly singing, at which point you're supposed to give them candy, unfortunately we had none so we just cheered them, we shall see what tonight has in store! Spent today at the market, which I found much more enjoyable then the other markets we've visited. This one was very authentic and for once we actually all started buying things!

Pictures! Top one is a pretty random shot, just to get a look at what the locals dress like here,
I had another to put up from our river tour, but this connection is waaaay too slow!

Until next time!

Adios!

Wasting away in Escondido-land...

Hola, not a WHOLE lot to report here, but Im at the internet so I may as well update! We found a place in southern Escondido, right on the beach with a pool for 50 pesos a night...ha! Sooo we decided to stay till saturday! Tomorrow we'll pack up our bags and head along the coast to Puerto Angel, then keep going right on through to San Cristobel, where we'll stay during the halloween, all saints day and day of the dead celebrations. Its an old city and apparently it goes fairly nuts for this holiday, so it should be good! Plan is to go from San Cristobel to Palenque then cross into Guatemala along some kind of river boat from there. We're trying to find out as much as we can about the state of Guatemala, but its difficult, hopefully the situation will become clearer as we get closer to it! If Guatemala is too rough, then we may have to bus it back up to Mexico City, *shudder*, and fly to honduras, but hopefully thats not the case!

Days here are spent doing what we do best...which is lounging around, having the odd cocktail and reading a lot. Lots of great food in Escondido, they really like their pizza, so that's definitely working out for me! Had a bit of a scare last night when an earthquake hit us, lasted for about 10 seconds. Was weird because we could hear this low but loud rumbling out over the ocean and just as we were asking each other what that was, the ground started shaking! Not to worry though, in our constant state of high awareness, we immediately pondered the likelyhood of a tsunami and inquired into it with the guy that runs the hotel. He just looked at us, laughed and said, "tsunami come, we all wash away amigos...", so that was reassuring. Luckily the water level didnt drastically recede so we figured it was safe to go back to our bottle of rum. Plans for today include: attempting to finish my book and eating dinner. Its a lot, I know, but hopefully I can get it done before the sun goes down. Adios!

Puerto Escondido

Our last two days in Oaxaca were quite enjoyable. As I see in Jason's blog he has already told most of you what happens to my beard when too many cervezas, coupled with his cheering and a really drunk german guy all combine. Mom, the biggest moth in the world found its way into our bathroom...it was probably 7-8 inches from wingtip to wingtip, i cant imagine how much blood it would be able to suck! Spent yesterday morning/afternoon checking out these Mayan ruins that are on a hill overlooking Oaxaca, very cool. We couldnt figure out how people who fit through such tiny doors, would build their staircases with like 2 foot steps...quite baffling. We had some great laughs at the attempts by the locals to sell us these fake tokens and statues. "eehh..amigo, i was walking along the hills and I found theez reeal old statues....you buy? 10 pesos?" Im sure that the original inhabitants would be ecstatic that their descendants have lowered themselves to this! Coming down from the ruins we forgot to secure a method of transportation, so we found ourselves walking along the road until some random bus decided to pick us up!

The plan for the night was to catch the night bus to Puerto Escondido. The trip there is about 7 hours, on a 2nd class bus along an extremely windy, potholed road. Couple that with we've all been having some stomach problems lately, I was not looking forward to it. After popping a gravol, I fell asleep right quick, only to be woken 45 minutes into the trip by an argument between the bus driver and the guy behind me. Sure enough we had to pull over, the driver and his assistant (all bus drivers have an assistant here, its weird) fetched the police, and they had to forcibly remove this guy from the bus in an arm lock. It was really weird, but as we sat there, we watched as machine gun toting police surrounded him and arrested him, fairly certain that it was because he didnt pay the fare, at least thats what I got out of the argument! Fell back asleep until about 4, when both jason and I were suffering from some car sickness..all in all it was a very unpleasant trip. Arrived in Escondido at 6 this morning, walked around completely lost for about an hour, then caught a local bus to the south side of town, except he wouldnt stop at the south side of town despite our pleads. The guy drove us out for like 10 kms, right outside of town, then when he stopped to pick up some more people we hopped out, pretty sure i saw him laughing at us as he drove away. Waited for another bus to come the opposite way for...who knows how long, then finally made it to where we wanted to go! Really cool little town here, best surfing in Mexico so there are a LOT of surf bums. Tons of old beater vans and trucks with Alberta, Ontario, BC, Nevada, California etc plates, with long haired surfer hippies hanging out all around. Plan for now is to probably stay here for a few days, then head inland. Thats all for now folks, adios!

Pictures: top one is pretty much what we've done all day in an effort to recuperate from the bus ride, bottom one is of me and Jas protectin' the ancient ruins!

Oaxaca

We felt that it was time to move on from Sayulita, so Friday evening we got our gear together and hit the road, final destination being Oaxaca! (pronounced Ha-wacka by the locals) What we thought was going to be a 12 hour travel day turned into a 30 hour travel day, so that kind of sucked. 5 hour ride to guadalajara, 8 hour ride to Mexico City, 7 hour wait there, then a 8 hour ride to Oaxaca. The bus from Guad to Mexico City wouldnt shut off his air conditioning for some reason and the bus was at sub-zero temperatures for the end of the ride. Mexico City was....big. Luckily it rained the night before so the pollution was way down, although it looked similar to LA. All 3 of us developed throat aches upon entering and they lingered until we were out past the city. The area surrounding the city was actually very cool, and looked really similar to the area around Skihist/Lytton. Finally got into Oaxaca Saturday night at about 9:30, after leaving Sayulita friday evening at 5. Staying at a hostel here, Oaxaca seems to be a definite destination for backpackers in Mexico. Very cool, old city with quite a bit to see and big open squares lined with cafes, lots of people milling about everywhere. Went to the market today, hit up a museum and one of the big churches. We plan on going to these smaller ruins tomorrow, then taking the night bus to Puerto Escondido, where we'll hang around for a few days, then go back inland to a bigger city for the Day of the Dead and Halloween celebrations. Looks like we have much more time in Mexico, given that Guatemala seems to be a write off.

Pictures: Me saying goodbye to the samurai as we left Sayulita...*sniff sniff*, next one is a typical Oaxacan street, pretty much what everything looks like around here, and the top one is of me eating grasshoppers! Apparently its the thing to do in Oaxaca, so Ryan and I spent some time looking around town and finally found some for sale at the market, pretty much tasted like the bbq sauce that was on them, but the consistency once you bit in was...unpleasant. They also had worms and cockroaches for sale, we opted for the hoppers!

Thats all for now, adios!

Quickie

Just threw some pictures on there for yesterday´s entry. Shot from the pongo boat ride, the next is a shot of the town that we landed in and the third is a shot of us in the waterfalls. Not much going on today besides lounging around debating over how much the constant stream of hurricanes is going to play with our itinerary (or lack thereof...). Adios!

Puerto Vallarta

Unfortunately I dont have a huge amount of time to submit this, so I'll type fast!

Yesterday was easy to describe...sat around, walked through some jungle with Ry to find some new beaches around and read a lot!

Today! Got up early and went into Puerto Vallarta with the owner of the place we're staying (Chantelle) and her friend Carolyne. We drove right through Vallarta and actually drove right to a little town that was on the mouth of the river upon which sat Chico's Paradise (remember that spot??) . From there we grabbed this 'pongo' boat (water taxi) that took us for about a 20 minute ride south along the coast to a village. The coast is littered with these tiny little water access only villages, and the one we went to was...Yelapa (I think thats the spelling!). It just got power about 7 months ago, so it's really starting to hit the big time! Walked up through the tiny little cobblestone walkways of the village and into the jungle behind where there is a big waterfall and a great pool of water (what they all thought was cold, but which we could have spent all day in) . Funny thing to note, on our way back down through the town, we found an internet cafe hah, pretty sure this was a sign that the internet is everywhere. Just as we were leaving the waterfall, this group of rowdy american tourists showed up, they had paid about 5x the price we paid and came on this booze cruise boat, luckily we managed to have the area to ourselves before being overrun. Had some cervazas and food on the beach) good section of the town is literally on a sand bar..., then hit the water taxi back up to the original town. All in all it was really quite cool and theres probably no way we would have known to do it if not for our hostess.

On a side note, the town was literally covered in these massive spider webs, each containing an arachnid horror, some literally the size of my hand, it was extremely awkward walking under these things and having the other 4 laughing at me as I ducked constantly. Since time is running out, Im not going to put pictures up today, but will for tomorrow! Adios!!

Guadalajara

In an effort to relax after the samurai disaster, I tried to take it easy the next day. Activities included, lying on the beach, sitting on the beach, surfing on the beach, snorkelling and an hour an a half massage from the beach masseuse! No complaints here! Late Saturday night we decided to go into Guadalajara (wanted to catch this 10am performance, so had to travel during the night). Left on a 12:30 bus from a town north of here. The bus ride was WAY shorter than we were told, so we got to Guadalajara at 4:30am. Hung out in the bus terminal, then wandered around until it got light out, it was a real bonding experience between us and the strange mexican bums that wander the city at those hours. Turns out the performance we were going for was cancelled, so that sucked! Went around to all the churches, some museums and what not, Guadalajara is a very cool old city, most of the old city was built in the late 1500´s/1600´s, so lots of history to take in (even if it was all explained in spanish). Our highlight of the day was the bull fight. For whatever reason, we decided to walk to the bull fight arena, what we didnt know is that, if we were in downtown Vancouver, the bullfighting arena is probably around lougheed mall. So that took some time. Kept stopping along the way for cervezas, so it wasnt all that tough. The bull fights were pretty intense, brought back memories of Tara telling us about her Spaniard bull fighting experience. Although we didnt outright cheer when the bulls got a good shot on a matador, secretly we were all hoping that one of the bulls would win. We had some side bets amongst ourselves as to which bull would do the most damage...still not sure who won that, for as the fighting went on, the cheap cervezas kept flowing. At the end of the fight we followed some kids lead and hopped down onto the field and managed to entertain a small crowd with our own makeshift bullfight (I was the bull, jason was the matador), all while side stepping the giant pools of blood that littered the arena floor. We ran through this side tunnel and came out to where the matadors were, and managed to get some pictures with them (on ry´s camera so i cant show ya). Funny thing is, these guys are all 16, from the stands they look like these hardened warriors, then up close they were kind of these geeky little kids, was pretty cool though. We didnt want to spend a night in guadalajara when we could just travel through the night again, so we hopped on a bus at 8pm and got back to sayulita sometime before 2am. Not sure what the next few days will have planned for us, but I think it involves a lot of sitting around. Really need to find a way to block these bloody spammers on my blog, I know theres a way, but I cant do much from here, given that all the instructions are in spanish! Adios!

uh oh..

Well we got up at 6am this morning to get a head start on the drive towards Puerto Escondido. So, as usual, the guys get behind the samurai and begin the push start procedure...except this time it decided not to work. We tried quite a few times before finally giving up and parking it back in its spot. It stutters and almost sounds like its started, but as soon as my foot goes back on the clutch, you can tell its still completely dead. So that left us with a few options. We talked to the two women who´s house we´re staying at and as with everything else they´re quite cool about it. The one who owns the house, Chantelle, has offered to take the car off our hands, and even turn in all the paperwork when she goes back to Arizona, so that it doesnt stick on my Mexican visa. We tried a few more times to get it started so that we could take it to a mechanic, we even towed it behind this guys truck, but nothing would help the old girl out. Chantelle has offered us free stay at her place in exchange for it, and if she sells it, or keeps it, maybe a little bit of cash farther down the road. Im not concerned about the money for the car, seeing as it was pretty much on borrowed time anyhow. I do feel pretty bad for the guy in Guatemala, and I´ve emailed him the news, hopefully he understands that its probably a good thing that he didnt take a lemon from us. We drove into Bucarius (just north of puerto vallarta) and talked to a mechanic, everyone is under the conclusion that a new starter for a 91 samurai would be tricky to find in Mexico, so Chantelle said she was going to bring one from Phoenix when she goes back next week. So for the time being, the plan looks to be that the car will stay here in Sayulita with Chantelle, her boyfriend (the guy who towed us) may fix it up later and was actually looking for something similar. In exchange we´re going to stay here for another week or so free of charge! I could definitely think of worse places to be stuck. So it appears that the real backpacking part of our trip will start that much earlier, as its bus rides from here out! We plan to take a bus ride in to Guadalaraja on Sunday and soak up some of its history, lots of museums, performances, cathedrals and on Sundays, bull fighting. We would spend the night there, then bus back to Sayulita. Im actually kind of relieved, assuming this works as planned. I was nervous about crossing the Guatemalan border with the car, and likewise handing it over to Mario down there, what if he hadn´t wanted it when he saw it? In this case, we still get accomodations for it (quite nice accomodations as my picture will hopefully show), and Chantelle is extremely helpful with taking care of any of the intrique things that involve speaking lots of spanish. So I guess our days of sitting on the beach and surfing are...still here! Hopefully these pictures will work so you can check out what our place is like. The one on top is the place we´re staying, the one on the bottom is a random shot of a portion of the beach, the restaurant in the foreground is where we ate thanksgiving dinner :) Later all!

Last Day in Sayulita

So it´s our last day in this sleepy little surfer town, for tomorrow we hit the road again! Last two days have been extremely laid back and uneventful. Every day is spent lying on the beach, with the odd attempt to surf. In the evening we have a few cervezas, get/make some dinner and usually have a few more cervezas! It was the stuntmen´s last night here yesterday, so we hung out with them for the better part of the day/night, going to bed around 3 after 12 more hours of their stories. Probably going to hang out by the pool today, the beach cabanas are too expensive to rent and the only other spots to sit are in the hot sand with no shade, so the pool is a viable alternative. We want to be up and on the road by 6:15 or so tomorrow as we have a lot of driving. Not sure where we´re going to stop for the night, but our final destination, for Saturday, is Puerto Escondido. From there we plan to stay a few days, then head over to the Yucatan. We´re keeping a close eye on the weather situation throughout here and Guatemala, and hopefully the crazy rain they´re getting doesnt through a wrench in our plans...but if it does, then we´ll just have to improvise!...getting quite used to that now. Anyhow, thats about it for our camp, weather is extremely nice out right now so im itchy to get to the pool, adios amigos y amigas!

Again with Sayulita...

Not much to report, but I figured I would update the blog everytime Im at a computer regardless!

Spent the rest of the entire day yesterday just lounging around the house, reading (and in jasons case sleeping...which is all he seems to do!). Went out at about 8:30ish and ran into the Stuntmen. Traded stories back and forth with them for 4 more hours until we closed down the one bar, then moved to another kind of after hours bar in town and closed it down too! Everywhere here shuts down early though, so the 5 of us headed back to our place (the stuntment are in the room next to ours) and finally hit the sack around 3am. Ry and Glen (the stunt brothers) are great guys, Glen played for the Canadian national rugby team for 12 years and through 3 world cups (I think he´s our Ryan´s new hero hehe), and they´ve worked on over 100 films between them, so it was a pretty entertaining night. Not doing much today besides attempting to surf and sitting on the beach. Think we´re going to try driving to a point a little south of here and do some snorkelling tomorrow, hopefully that pans out, if not, me and Ryan might go out fishing! Thats about it for now, adios amigos! and amigas!

Sayulita!

Well that stinks, I put another post on here while we were in Mazatlan...but something messed up and it never got posted! So I guess Ill have to put a bigger one up here to explain what we've been up to!

We ended up making it to Guaymas from Sonoyta at about 4-5 pm, where we drove around and tried to find a place to stay, we opted for the dingy side of town due to costs (the well known, tourist area being San Carlos). We found a weird little road that led right along the ocean and at the end of it was a strange little hotel with no one around except for dozens of cats, called Hotel Leos. Since we were the only ones there and Leo was a pretty laid back guy, we ended up staying two nights, in an effort to recupe from the previous few days of hard driving. It was nice having this whole place to ourselves so we hung around on the patio all day, but didnt get any surfing in because its too far up the baja (no waves!). Woke up bright and early the next day and decided to make a run for Mazatlan (10 hour trip). We got to Mazatlan around 4ish, found a hotel down by the beach and stayed there for the night (where I tried to post another update, but failed!). On the way there, the Samurai decided to install its own anti-theft device, but disabling its starter motor! Sooo now we have to push the little girl everywhere we go in order to get it started. We had one embarrassing moment, when Ryan (whos new to the standard driving scene) stalled it going through a military checkpoint (there are loooots of these). Luckily the soldier there got behind us and pushed us till we were able to 'er going again, was quite funny and we all had a good laugh.

After leaving Mazatlan, we drove for 7 hours down to Sayulita, which is where we are now. We kept looking forward to hitting the rain forests, but I guess it never dawned on us, why they were in fact called rain forests. The down pour from Mazatlan to Sayulita was enormous, we were all wrapped in our jackets as we rode through it in the samurai...with massive amounts of water coming in through the top hole (the surfboard provided a weak roof..). The surrounding country was very nice looking though, but a lot of the time we were too focused on the road to pay much attention to it. The roads were a little poorer than other parts of mexico, so the potholes need to be avoided at all costs! Luckily not many people seem to drive on the different highways! Anyhow, got into Sayulita about 3-4pm yesterday, couldnt find a place to stay cause its sunday, its the off season and it was siesta time. So we ended up staying at yet another busted up hotel. We looked for a place to eat a nice thanksgiving dinner, but ended up at this sand bar/restaurant right on the beach (everywhere else was closed). So instead of turkey we had shrimp quesadillas (yes yes...i ate shrimp, the guy messed up our order!), it actually wasnt THAT bad, and we washed away our lack of stuffing/gravy bitterness with more than a few pina coladas! Found some guys in the bar (two stuntmen from Vancouver) who are staying at a great little place up the hill, so this morning we packed our stuff and headed up there, we booked 4 nights and the place is awesome, definitely the best place we've stayed so far! After driving this long of a distance through Mexico, a number of things have dawned on me:

1. Mexico is WAY bigger than I thought...no matter how far we go, the guatemalan border seems to move the same speed away..
2. The desert is beyond hot even in October
3. Rural Mexico stinks, we havent been able to pin point the smell (kind of a mix between raw sewage and fish guts), but its quite overbearing!

Anyhow, we're gonna hang out here and surf for a few days, then go farther south then hopefully east into the Yucatan! Ill probably post again tomorrow! Adios!

Bahhh, i tried to upload pictures, but it didnt work! oh well, mayhaps ill send them with the email, also below is the email update I sent out earlier, just wanted to post it on here!


____________________________________________________

Oct 5th

We stayed at Trents until tuesday morning, got off a little later than we wanted, but it was well worth it. Nick took the three of us surfing, then we all went out to lunch, then Nick actually gave us a surfboard, it was an old junker he had , but for us it´çs perfect! Everyone in Manhattan beach was so cool, mucho gracias to Trent and Kara for letting them stay at their place, and subsequently letting us handle all their guns out of curiousity (Trent let us pose with his 9 mm and combat shotgun..im pretty sure he was hiding an apache attack helicopter underneath the bed...). So with the board strapped to the roof, we headed down to san diego and crossed the border at about 7:00, much later than we actually wanted to. We decided to make the half hour drive to Rosarito (sp?) and arrived some time after 8, by which time it was night out. Couldnt find the hostel that we had originally wanted to stay in, so we looked around for a motel and found a seedy little dive for the three of us. We sat outside our room for the rest of the night, had some drinks, played some cards, then went to bed. Drove aaaall day today again, in an effort to get to a more hospitable environment. Weçre now in Sanoyta, which is on the border of mexico and arizona, very hot here. Our hotel tonight is a wee bit better than last night, but that doesnt say much. We had to go back up to the border to pick up our mexican visas, cause the first time through, we literally just drove through, they have some random system and we didnt hit it so we just passed through a gate and we were into mexico! The weather here is pretty damn hot for us cold blooded canadian kids. w´drove across desert for about 6-7 hours today, surrounded by sand, shrubs and cactuses, very hot, even if it is october. Tomorrow the plan is to get up early, and make a break for the coast, a place called Guaymas, itçs about a 7 hour drive from here so we think we can do it. The toll roads here are pretty great, no one on them and they´ve very similar to a canadian highway. The samurai is holding up great, and i think she enjoys the hot weather! Thats it for now, not much to report except for lots of driving and some heat! Miss ya all, until next time (which will hopefully be fairly soon...if it was easier finding the internet in these little towns that is!)

Jord

PS Mom, we really need to start looking into the whole "you flying down here to cook thanksgiving dinner" thing

The Happiest Place on Earth...

Just got back from Disneyland, and we're all pretty exhausted. Everything that was closed in March, has now been reopened and is the whole place is pretty spiffed up for their 50th anniversary dealy. Now we're just sitting here watching Monday Night Football at Trent's. Figured I would just keep updating this thing as long as there's a computer around, so thats what Im doing! Tomorrow we're off to Mexico, but not before going surfing with Trent and Nick. We hope to cross the border around 1-2pm, then it's about 27 miles to the town of Rosarito, where we'll probably hang out for a few days in an atempt to cure the cold that's sapping all our strength. Here's a pic of ry and jas with the mad hatter, we tried several times to get pictures with Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty...but it just never worked out, so we settled for the Hatter. Next will be from Mexico, adios!

We're alive!

After too many hours of driving we finally made it to LA! At times it was only the banana bread that kept me going (thanks Michelle, quite good!) We took a small three hour break at about 1 am last night, and all managed to have an absolutely horrible 'sleep' in the Samurai. We were out of there by 3:30 am and kept driving, arrived at LA by 8:30 am, we drove throughout Beverly Hills, and into UCLA then ended up lying on a beach in Santa Monica until finally and tiredly managing to find Trent's place here in Manhattan Beach. Tomorrow is DisneyLand so that should be fun, thanks again Dev =) That's all for now, nothing too eventful!